Friday, March 21, 2003

WUWT, part the second:

- The outrage in some quarters that Avril Lavigne didn't know who David Bowie was or any of the '77 era punk bands or whatever. Why should she? She's not in the same tradition as those guys - she's not making any pretenses about "authenticity" besides a few pseudo-punk marketing gestures that anyone over the age of 15 should be able to spot. Besides that, the whole idea behind this canonization of 60's/70's rock is kind of ridiculous. I like a lot of that stuff, of course, but the idea that you must listen to something or be thought of as ignorant is rather stifling. Do we really want the last 50 years of music and pop culture boiled down to a must-read
(or -view, or -listen) list of 100 things? Honestly, one of the things I love most about pop culture is the fact that it's okay to like what you like without the sort of intellectual defense that you often have to mount in "serious" culture. It would be a shame if that self-seriousness found its way into pop music appreciation.

- Sportsfigures speaking out for the war. (I'm talking about David Robinson in that last article.) I'll make you a deal, right wingers of America - shut up the pro athletes and we'll put a muzzle on entertainers speaking out about politics. No backup catchers spewing rhetoric, no Barbra Streisand. I think this is one cause we can all rally behind.

- The new early 1950's nostalgia craze sweeping the country. Blacklists.Duck and Cover. Crypto-fascistnutcases with repressed sexualhangups in charge of the nation's law enforcement. I would provide more examples, but I have to go down to the frat house and swallow a few goldfish, then watch a rigged quiz show on the DuMont.